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ISLAMABAD:
The Supreme Court has ordered provincial governments to take concrete measures for the welfare and protection of senior citizens, underlining the constitutional obligation to safeguard family life, dignity and social security.
In a nine-page judgment written by Justice Salahuddin Panwar, the Supreme Court directed the Sindh government to establish and ensure effective functioning of protection committees in each district within ninety days, as required by Section 19 of the Sindh Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act, 2013.
The court also directed the law and parliamentary affairs department of the Punjab government to review this matter, take necessary action and introduce a welfare code for senior citizens including a municipal fund and a simple maintenance court.
The verdict came during a hearing into a property dispute between a father and his children.
According to the case file, the complainant, a retired doctor and a senior citizen, alleged that his two adult children, a daughter and a son from a dissolved marriage, had illegally dispossessed him of his house at 24-B, Sunset Boulevard, DHA Phase-II Extension, Karachi.
He contended that although he had provided financial support for the education of the petitioners both in Pakistan and abroad, they eventually became abusive towards him and forced him to vacate his own residence.
The father lodged a complaint before the Karachi South Additional Sessions Judge under Section 3 of the Unlawful Dispossession Act, 2005, following which bailable arrest warrants were issued against his children. The petitioners challenged the order before the Sindh High Court (SHC), which dismissed their plea, prompting them to approach the Supreme Court.
A three-member bench headed by Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar raised the question whether “a complaint under Section 3 of the 2005 Act can be maintained in a family setting of permissive possession between a parent and his adult children, in the absence of clear material indicating mens rea to dispossess, appropriate or unlawfully occupy.”
The ruling noted that the law was “a special criminal law intended to protect legitimate owners and occupants against forcible dispossession and land grabbing by unauthorized persons.”
He clarified that its application was not limited to the so-called “qabza groups or land mafias”, but extended to any person who forcibly broke into or controlled another person’s property “with the intention of dispossessing, appropriating, controlling or occupying it.”
The ruling highlighted that Pakistan’s constitutional framework “places the family at the center of social life”, with Articles 9 and 14 ensuring personal security and dignity, Article 31 compelling the state to allow Muslims to live according to Islamic mandates, and Article 35 mandating the protection of the family, mother and child.
“In our collective, non-individualistic social fabric, the home is a place of mutual care, interdependence and trust,” the ruling states, adding that “Islamic law and ethics accord the highest status to parents and the elderly and demand kindness, respect and service towards them. Therefore, criminal laws must be applied to deter abuse without dividing family unions or criminalizing ordinary frictions within them.”
The court warned that “implementing the IDA 2005 in a permissive and fiduciary family environment risks excessive criminalization and distorts the statute beyond its text, purpose and spirit.”
He also referred to the Sindh Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act, 2013, noting that it defines an aggrieved person broadly and guarantees, through Article 9, the right of residence of women, children or other vulnerable persons in a shared home.
“Section 19 mandates district-level protection committees with multidisciplinary members including expertise in psychology and social welfare,” the judgment observes, adding that “implementation of section 19 of the Sindh Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act, 2013 remains uneven.”
The judgment reiterated that “the Government of Sindh will ensure that protection committees are fully constituted and functional in all districts, with the inclusion of psychologists and psychosocial workers, and that their referral pathways are activated so that families are supported and vulnerable persons are protected without resorting to overly extensive criminal proceedings.”
He further noted that while there is the Islamabad Capital Territory Senior Citizens Act 2021, “the provinces have the primary responsibility for social protection.”
“Domestic violence frameworks are uneven in protecting vulnerable persons,” the ruling continued, explaining that Sindh and Balochistan define “aggrieved persons” broadly to include any vulnerable person, while Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa largely restrict protection to women.
“Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have long enacted statutes for senior citizens, and Balochistan has done the same, while Punjab has so far brought in only one welfare bill for senior citizens,” the judgment states.
“These divergences lead to protection depending on geography rather than need and invite a harmonization of principles that respects provincial autonomy but ensures a basis of dignity for seniors and other dependents.”
The court said it was “constitutionally appropriate and administratively imperative” for the Punjab government to consider two complementary approaches: “first, broaden the definition of aggrieved person in its domestic violence law to include any vulnerable person, thereby enabling prompt civil protection relief for dependent elders within the domestic sphere; and second, enact, along the lines of the Punjab Welfare of Elderly Persons Bill, 2025, a rights and maintenance statute that creates a modest welfare fund and a simple and summary court for the maintenance and care of parents.
The ruling further stated that such legislation should “provide for conciliatory procedures based on notices, calibrated residence orders, maintenance and care plans, rapid implementation and civil sanctions in the first instance, reserving the criminal sanction for contumacious non-compliance.”
“This approach would be in line with Articles 9, 14, 31 and 35 of the Constitution and with our collective spirit that reveres parents and protects family life,” the court added.
Copies of the judgment were ordered to be sent to the legal departments of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through their principal secretaries and advocates general “for information and any analogous measures they deem appropriate.”
